Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to providing secure Internet experience to users and, more specifically, to securing user's private data on social networking websites.
Description of the Related Art
Social networking websites, which focus on building and reflecting social relationships among people have gained tremendous popularity in the recent years. The use of such websites by a user typically involves creation of user's profile on the website. The profile would contain certain information about the user who owns the profile. Much of the aforesaid profile information is private in nature and consists of user's private data, such as age, background, educational information, interests, contact information, etc. Naturally, the security of this private information has become a primary concern to many users.
While most of the social networking websites provide built-in security and access control mechanisms, such conventional mechanisms are subject to certain known limitations. For example, due to the fact that the user's private information is stored in the social networking website servers, nothing prevents the social networking website from granting access to user's private data to other users, government entities and applications without the express knowledge and consent of the user.
Thus, novel systems and methods for keeping user's information private and providing the users with the ability to have full control as to who has the access to user's private data is needed.